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Moammar Gaddafi And Some Food For Thought

Gaddafi proposed a new method of Security Council membership. Instead of having individual countries as members of the Security Council, why could the Security Council not be composed of representatives of blocs of countries? One seat on the Security Council should be given to the European Economic Union. Another seat to the African Union.

[Global: Op-Ed]

President Moammar Al-Gaddafi of Libya is a favorite target of newspapers, radio and of course politicians in the United States.

Yet Gaddafi is taken very seriously by many other countries. President Gaddafi is held in such high regard by African countries that he is President of the African Union and is referred to as “King of Kings,” a title reflecting the belief that he is acting in the best interests of the many Kingdoms of Africa.

The United States is correct in stating that President Gaddafi is a danger to the United States because President Gaddafi recognized many years ago that the United States would no longer reign supreme in the world.

Upon seizing power and deposing the Western-influenced King Idris in 1969 President Gaddafi struck out on a course to diminish the exploitation of the underdeveloped and resource rich countries by the Western powers, which sought to exploit the resources of these countries.

Gaddafi nationalized the oil fields in Libya; determined that the people of Libya must profit from the exploitation of their heritage- the natural resources of Libya.

It’s Gaddafi’s belief that all countries must be treated equally that particularly galls American political leaders- even though this fact is stated in the Preamble to the United Nations Charter, as he pointed out at the U.N. General Assembly last week.

In his address to the United Nations Gaddafi quoted liberally from the Preamble to the United Nations Charter.

He demonstrated that the lofty principles of the Preamble were negated by the United Nations Charter. He said that the United Nations was formed by the conquerors of Germany, which gave themselves veto power over the votes of the General Assembly.

Gaddafi asked how was it possible that India with one billion people is not a member of the Security Council. He made mention that Brazil an emerging power should have representation on the Security Council.

Gaddafi proposed a new method of membership. Instead of having individual countries as members of the Security Council, why could the Security Council not be composed of representatives of blocs of countries? One seat on the Security Council should be given to the European Economic Union; another seat to the African Union.

He has solid points.

How could France and England have seats on the Security Council and Germany not have a seat? It’s Germany, with its powerful economy, which supports the European Economic Union. Why should Germany be deprived of a deserved seat on the Security Council and France have a seat?

What of Japan, whose economy is the second largest in the world? Shouldn’t Japan have a seat on the Security Council?What of India with one billion people? Surely the modernization of India would be hastened with a place on the Security Council.

What of Saudi Arabia and the other countries of the Middle East, whose oil lubricates the economies of the Western World? These countries hold vast amounts of American debt. If they were to suddenly dump dollars on the financial markets, the dollar would collapse- and the dark ages would be upon us.

Gaddafi rightly describes the United States as a beggar nation, which must beg other countries to accept its dollars in order for the United States to remain solvent.

Gaddafi is excoriated for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie. Libya has denied criminal liability. It did however pay the Lockerbie bombing victims’ families $10 million each for civil liability. Since that tragedy the United States has also moved to normalize relations with Libya and last year during the George W. Bush administration Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Libya.

It should also be noted that the United States in 1986 launched a missile attack on President Qaddafi’s residence, which killed 40 Libyans, including his daughter. The United States has never offered compensation to the families of the victims of its missiles in Libya.

The United States has always supported murderous dictatorships as long as they supported the West and permitted Western powers to exploit their natural resources. For example, the United States supported the murderous Mobutu, of what was then Zaire; he drained his country of billions of dollars and permitted Zaire to descend into a darkness not known since the rule of the Belgians.

In 1965 the United States supported the murder of 500,000 Indonesians of Chinese descent by the supporters of the dictator Suharto of Indonesia. The United States supported this genocide as a counterweight to the influence of the Communist party in Indonesia and China.

Ironically, it is China, once derided as a backward communist regime, which now holds the largest amount of American debt; debt accumulated while Americans were spending their way into oblivion.

And who could forget the support, which the United States gave to the murderous self-proclaimed “Shah of Iran,” who looted the country?

Currently the United States supports Museveni in Uganda- a blood thirsty dictator, who thinks nothing of perpetrating genocide upon other ethnic groups.

To the chagrin of those Americans and other race baiters, President Qaddafi stated that in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries when Jews were persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church, it was Muslims who took in Jews and offered them protection against the inquisition and death by torture.

Jews were protected when Muslims ruled Andalusia, as Spain was then called. While for many Americans 1492 signifies the discovery of America by Columbus, 1492 also represented the year that Jews were persecuted and expelled from Spain.It is a well known fact that Jews and Eastern Christians suffered greatly during the wars known in the West as the “Crusades.” These Jews and Eastern Christians were not murdered by Muslims; they were murdered by the Crusaders, Christian pirates who looted Constantinople and raped and murdered its inhabitants.

Qaddafi specifically spoke of pirates- at least those in Somalia, whom the American press calls pirates. Somalis were fisherman until the industrialized nations of the West harvested all the fish from the waters of Somalia and left the Somalis to starve.

It is the rapacious nature of the West that has driven countries into poverty and lawlessness.